Redesign a Robust Skill Tree

[wildbill 142]

1 hour ago, DeadbyFrag said:

I can appreciate your opinion. It sounds like Wurm did something wrong but there is also an established successful model with Eve Online. I use this as the point of reference as Atlas used it in their PR campaign leading up to the release.

So if we leave the skill tree alone and hand it out to everyone, what incentivizes the player base to interact with each other? What incentive do I have to be part of a company if I can do everything myself? What makes me a valid, useful member or gives me purpose in my company if they can do everything without me? 

What incentive do I have if there is nothing better to grind for after a month of playing?

My opinion is that by handing out the entire skill tree to everyone it kills player community engagement. Think of all the islands that people lock down and then never let anyone in. Why would they when the can turn to a hermit and do everything themselves without ever leaving shore? They don't need anything beyond their walls.

I also think when you can't find a purpose in an MMO it gets boring fast. 

There are plenty of MMOs with fully unlockable skill trees (Ark, Rust, 7 Days to Die, ect) and time and time again I see friends come and go in 1 - 3 months in these types of games as there is nothing to strive for beyond that point. So what keeps people engaged for years instead of months? How many friends have you already lost due to boredom? 

I agree that to make any of this work you have to rework skill points and you have to limit barriers to trade but give me something to keep going for.

I wish I had (not really) some experience with Eve Online so I could understand what you are talking about when it comes to Eve. I did play almost 2000 hours of Wurm Unlimited, so did try a few different servers and give that game a good try, but in the end it wasn't for me.

I personally don't think we should try to force (incentivize) people to interact. They either will or won't. Forcing any one particular type of game play will just create the incentive to find a different game to play. If a player likes to do everything themselves (me for instance) and they find they cannot, they will find a game where they can. I do interact with other players though, but not because it is required in the game, but occasionally to do something fun that is a group activity. Usually someone is showing me something interesting, like a resource location, or I might be doing that for a new player.

I'm an introvert, so see nothing wrong with playing a game that mostly is solo play. As an introvert, you might think something is wrong with that, but I have plenty of fun just doing activities alone. This really could just be a personality difference. I don't think it would make sense to force an extrovert to play alone or an introvert to play only with other players. Let people pick what works best for them and everyone will remain happy.

I think the game does force people to travel already and not just stay in one spot. It does not force them to interact though. It does this a couple of ways. There are treasure maps, and the best maps are the farthest distance from where the bottle is found. Also there are BPs that you find when you dig up treasure that require 2 to 5 different resource types to craft them. So you also need to travel to find the different resources. You also need to find different resources for things like the preserving bags (you need salt) and some locations don't have basic things like sap or even metal.

I know this is the official forum, but in fact, it is the official Atlas forum, not the forums just for official servers. The official servers are an "MMO" type game, but most people are playing Atlas on dedicated servers. Probably on average with just 4 grids, maybe 10 players online at any time, so the game works perfectly well not as an MMO too. Grapeshot games has said specifically, even before release they plan to support this non-MMO mode also. They support mods and other things those types of servers will use.

One way I personally stay interested in Atlas is to move to a different server when I get bored on a server. This keeps it interesting for me, since each one has a different layout. I'm also forced to do this sometimes too. These are run by mostly individuals. Servers can come and go when the owner loses interest or runs into a technical problem that "crashes" the server. That's just the way it goes, but works for me.

Edited February 19, 2019 by wildbill

[Captain Jack Shadow 488]

I am probably older than most here.  Been playing online games quite seriously since Delta Force 2.  That was the first one that really made me want to play it online, against other people.  Before that, it was mostly single player games.  OK, so in games like that...your typical first person shooter, you have different skills on the battlefield, based on the loadout you chose.  The sniper has range, but sucks up close, compared to somebody with an LMG, or SMG.  So while you have depth, you aren't actually limited.  You want to snipe, you snipe.  You want to tear it up in close quarters, you choose a more suitable weapon.  You aren't limited.

The game I played that was literally the most fun I have ever played, was a game called World War II Online.  It was the first, and still is the only, 24/7/365 Persistent Battlefield.  Released in June 2001, and still has a hard core base that plays it.  In that game, you could spawn a rifleman, on your first day, and still kill the other side's Commander in Chief, with one bullet.  Only took you about a month of playing to get up to Sgt, and then you could spawn anything in the spawn list.  I played that game seriously, for 10 years.  Nothing other than your own skill would determine your success.  Not having more hours to play than somebody else, not some ability to skew things in your favor by adjusting your stats to favor combat, then taking the other poor guy by surprise while he is spec'd to get chores done.  As a result that game was pure fun.  This game, and games like it, tend to cause me more frustration than fun.

Like tonight.  Me and a friend decided to take a look at a large unofficial server.  So we bust our butts to get a fast schooner and set out to find someplace to set up a base.  We sailed quite a while and never saw anyone.  Saw a couple of times where one other person was on the same server as us.  Often, we would be the only ones in.  So we put it down to a school/work night, and ORP keeping folks safe.  We got a bit careless, as a result, and while it was an unarmed schooner, built for speed, we started gathering some of the materials we were finding.  Then, we spotted an island that is one of my favorites.  A medium sized one with a good harbor.  So I wanted to take a look.  As we found a spot to anchor near the harbor, suddenly I see somebody in the chat type "Hello?"  So I typed "Hello" back, then noted that the server had ORP, but I was not seeing decay timers.  Suddenly, BOOM...and our ship...clearly an unarmed schooner, is getting hit.  Yeah, it's "PvP.  I just realize that as I play this, I am a very different kind of PvP player, which is why I maintain that this game and ARK suck at PvP.  Like I told the guy, I am all for PvP, but shooting an unarmed ship is not my kind of PvP, because there is NO challenge to it.  Not like the tense tank battles I had in WWIIOL, where I always chose the side that had it roughest, yet still finished in the middle of the top 25 tankers, every single campaign.  Only one of 3 people to hit the top every time, with Brit tanks, and the only person to hit the top 25 with Brit tanks, every single campaign.  Could to it with the German tanks too.  Didn't bother with the French tanks too often because they were far superior to the Brit tanks, so less challenge.  So I see an unarmed schooner, and I will just engage the guy in conversation.

But seriously, what the hell is up with people saying Hello, just before they shoot at you?  Not the first time this happened.  Seems seriously slimy...like you are trying to get the person to let their guard down before you shoot.  I understand what my friend meant, when he tried to warn me about these types of games...and the higher than normal concentration of toxic players.

Edited February 20, 2019 by Captain Jack Shadow